Dermont Healy Biography

Irish novelist and writer of short stories, born in Co. Westmeath. He has worked as a labourer, insurance underwriter, actor, director, and editor of The Drumlin, a magazine of literature and local history based in Co. Cavan. Much of Healy's work has concerned the divided communities of Ireland's border counties, a setting which offers metaphors with which to cross the divide between past and present. His short story collection Banished Misfortune (1982), and his novels Fighting with Shadows; or Sciamachy (1984) and The Goats' Song (1990), incorporate diverse styles of expression while producing an ironic effect of realism.